One of my recurring desires is to purchase a ‘worthless’ car, paint it white (like a gesso-ed canvas) and paint on it with tempera paints. That way, once I’m tired of whatever I painted this time, I can take it to a high pressure car wash and blast it all away and start all over again.

Up until recently, though, I haven’t had a car that I could do this with. However the quarter-million mile Cavalier might be the one…

I’m pretty picky, but very little of this compares with Janis Joplin’s Porsche, or with the art cars on my website (go to motorlegends.com, and click on “art cars). In particular, I dislike the motif of gluing plastic toys onto cars. (I blogged a Saab with a bunch of glued on toys on this site a couple of years ago.)

Nonetheless, this stuff is wacky and zany, and they are having a fun celebration, and maybe there were some really good ones that weren’t shown. I just might go to Houston some year for this.

In the late ’60’s there was a VW bug running around the west side of Houston, representing a local wrought-iron business. The car was completely re-bodied in filigree wrought iron fencing and gate parts. it looked great but was probably a half ton heavier than the original body. Also, not much protection from Houston’s heat and thunderstorms. Crashworthiness unknown.